Harper's Young People, December 14, 1880 An Illustrated Monthly

MY SISTER'S GRAPES.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."

Perhaps you might not think Uncle Dick a "gentleman"--Aunt Emma did not, I know, though she kept her mind to herself, being his brother's widow, and the prudent mother of many children. Uncle Dick lived with them; that is, if he could be said to live anywhere, being always on the move, never liking to stay long in one place, and somewhat restless-minded, as those are who have passed all their life in rambling about the world. A "rolling stone" he certainly was, though he could scarcely be said to have gathered no moss, as he had amassed two fortunes, one after the other: having lost the first, he was now enjoying the second in his own harmless but rather eccentric way.

I doubt if Aunt Emma really liked him, yet she was always very civil to him, her chief complaint being that he never would "take his position in the world"; that is, he avoided her balls, made himself scarce at her dinner parties, and no persuasion could ever induce him to exhibit his long, thin, gaunt figure, his brown hands and face, in evening clothes. What a "guy" he would have looked in them! as we boys always agreed, and sympathized with him, and not with Aunt Emma. But in his own costume we admired him immensely. His shooting-jacket, Knickerbockers, and Panama hat were to us the perfection of comfort and elegance.

As to his cleverness, that also was a disputed point with some folk. But we had never any doubt at all. And perhaps we were right. "A fool and his money are soon parted," says the proverb. But when they part to meet again--that is, when a man can bear the loss of one fortune, and set to work to make another--the chances are (without any exaggerated Mammon-worship I say it) that he is not a fool.

"Yes, I have really made two fortunes," said Uncle Dick, as we sat beguiling a sunshiny day, when the fish refused to bite, by plying him with innumerable questions, till at last he "rose" like a trout at a fly. "How old was I when I lost the first one? Well, about twenty-five. Yes, I remember it happened on my birthday, Michaelmas-day."

"Happened all in one day?" some of us inquired.

"Ay, in a day, an hour, a minute," said Uncle Dick, with his peculiar smile, half sad, half droll, as if he saw at once all the fun and all the pathos of life. "And now I remember it was not in the day, but in the middle of the night. I went to sleep a rich man; by daylight I was a beggar. Any more questions, boys?"

Of course we rained them upon him by the dozen. He sat composedly, watching his float swim down the stream, and answered none for ever so long: Uncle Dick had, when he chose, an unlimited capacity for silence.

"Yes," he said at length, "it was one night in the middle of the Atlantic on the deck of a sinking ship. There's a saying, boys, about gaining the whole world and losing one's own soul. Well, I gained then my soul, though I lost my fortune. And it was all through my sister's grapes."

Now Uncle Dick was in the habit of talking nonsense--at least Aunt Emma considered it such. In his long solitude he was accustomed to let his thoughts run underground, as it were, for a good while, when they would suddenly crop up again, and he would make a remark, apropos of nothing, which greatly puzzled matter-of-fact people, or those who liked elegant small-talk, of which he had absolutely none.

"Your sister's grapes?" repeated one of us, with great astonishment. "Then you had a sister? Where is she now?"

Uncle Dick looked up at the blue sky--intensely blue it was that day, as deep and measureless as infinity. "Where is she? I don't know: I wish I did. But He knows, and I shall find out some time." Then he added, briefly, "My sister Lily died of consumption when she was fifteen, and I about ten years old."

"And what about her grapes? Is it a story--a true story?"

"Quite true to me, though all might not believe it. Some might even laugh at it, and I don't like to be laughed at. No I don't mind; it can't harm me. I'll tell you, boys, if you like to hear. It may be a good lesson for some of you."

We did not much care for "lessons," but we liked a story; so we begged Uncle Dick to tell us this one from the very beginning.

"No, not from the beginning, which could benefit neither you nor me," said Uncle Dick, gravely. "I'll take up my tale from the point I mentioned, when I found myself at midnight on the deck of the Colorado Australian steamer, bound for London, fast going down. And she went down."

"You with her?"

"Not exactly, or how could I be here sitting quietly fishing? which seems odd when I think of the hurly-burly of that night. It had come quite suddenly after a long spell of fair weather, which we found so dull that we began drinking, smoking, gambling, and even fighting now and then; for we were a rough lot, mostly 'diggers' who, like myself, had worked a 'claim,' or half a claim, at Ballarat--worked it so well that they soon found they had made a fortune, so determined to go to Europe and spend it.

"I thought I would do the same. I was quite young, yet I had amassed as much money as many a poor fellow--a clergyman, or a soldier, or an author--can scrape together in a lifetime; and I wanted to spend it in seeing life. Hitherto I had seen nothing at all--in civilization, that is. I never had the least bit of 'fun,' until I ran away from home seven years before; and very little fun after, for it was all hard work. Now, having been so lucky as to make my fortune, I meant to use it in enjoying myself.

"I had never enjoyed home very much. My people, good as they were, were rather dull, or at least I thought them so. They always bothered me about 'duty,' till I hated the very sound of the word. They called my fun mischief; my mischief they considered a crime; so I slipped away from them, and after a letter or two I gradually let them go, or fancied they were letting me go, and forgot almost their very existence. I might have been a waif and stray drifted ashore from the sea or dropped from the clouds, so little did I feel as if I had any one belonging to me. My relations, even my parents, had all melted out of my mind; for weeks I sometimes never once thought of them--never remembered that I had a father, or mother, or brothers. Lily had been my only sister, and she died."

Uncle Dick stopped a moment, then continued:

"I don't wish, boys, to put myself forward as worse than I was, or better. People find their own level pretty well in this world. It's no good either to puff yourself up as a saint, or go about crying yourself down as a miserable sinner. In either case you think a great deal too much about yourself, which is as harmful a thing as can happen to any man.

"Certainly I was no worse than my neighbors, and no better. I liked everybody, and most people liked me. I troubled nobody, and nobody troubled me. I meant to go on that principle when I got back into civilization, to spend my money, and have my fling. Possibly I might run down to see 'the old folks at home,' whom we diggers were rather fond of singing about; but we seldom thought about them. At least I never did, and they formed no part of my motive for coming to England. I came simply and solely to amuse myself.

"I had just turned in with the rest--not drunk, as a good many of us were that night, but 'merry.' One hour after, we turned out, and stood facing one another--and facing death. A sudden hurricane had risen; one of our masts had gone overboard; we had sprung a leak; and work as we might at the pumps, the Captain said he believed we should sink or go to pieces before morning. He had been drunk too, which perhaps accounted for our disaster, in a good sound ship and the safe open sea; but he was sober enough now. He did his best, and when hope was over, said he should 'go to the bottom with his ship.' And he went. I took his watch to his widow: he gave it me before he jumped overboard, poor fellow.

"Well, boys, what was I going to tell you? I forget," said Uncle Dick, drawing his long brown hand across his forehead. "Oh, about the ship Colorado going down, and all the poor wretches fighting for their lives in the boats--or out of them, which was about an equal chance. We could just see one another in the starlight or the white gleam of the waves--groups of struggling men (happily there was not a woman on board), some paralyzed and silent, others shrieking with terror, some sobbing and praying, others only cursing: for heaven, which we all were straight going to--or hoped to go--seemed to be the last thing we ever thought of. We only thought of life, dear life--our own lives--nobody else's.

"People say that a shipwreck brings out human nature in all its brutality: 'every man for himself, and God--no, not God, but the devil--for us all.' I found it so. To see those men, old, young, and middle-aged, some clothed, some half-naked, but all clinging to their bags, full of nuggets, which they had tied round their waists or held in their hands, eager to save themselves and their gold, and utterly reckless of everything and everybody else--it was horrible! Gradually it dawned upon some of the feebler among them that they would hardly save themselves, to say nothing of their money. Then they no longer tried to hide it, but frantically offered a quarter, a half, two-thirds, of their gold to any one who would help them. But in vain--utterly in vain.

"For me, I was a young fellow--young and strong. I had never faced death before, and it felt--well, sad and strange. I was not exactly frightened, but I was awed. I turned from the selfish, brutal, cowardly wretches around me; they had shown themselves in their true colors, and I was disgusted at myself for having put up with them so long. I didn't like even to go to the bottom with such a miserable lot. In truth, it felt hard enough to go to the bottom at all.

"The biggest of my nuggets I always carried in a belt round my waist, but the rest of my 'fortune' was in my bag. Most of us carried these bags, and tried to get with them into the boats, which was impossible. So some had to let them go overboard, but others, shrieking and praying, refused to be parted from their 'luggage,' as they called it. They were not parted, for both soon went to the bottom together. I was not inclined for that exactly, and so, after a few minutes' thought, I left my bag behind."

"How much was there in it?" some one asked.

"I don't know exactly, but I guess" (Uncle Dick still used a Yankee phrase now and then) "somewhere about seven or eight thousand pounds."

We boys drew a long breath. "What a lot of money! And it all went to the bottom of the sea?"

"Yes, but as the Bible says, 'What will not a man give in exchange for his soul?' or his life--for my soul troubled me mighty little just then. I hardly knew I had one till I lost my money; so you see it was a good riddance perhaps."

We stared. Uncle Dick talked so very oddly sometimes! And then we begged him to continue his story.

"Well, I was standing waiting my turn to jump into the boat--the last boat, for two had been filled and swamped. Being young, it seemed but right to let the older fellows go first; and, besides, I wanted to stick by the Captain as long as I could. He, I told you, determined to stick by his ship, and went down with her. He had just given me his watch, and his last message to his wife, and I was trying, as I said, to keep quiet, with all my wits about me. For all that, I seemed to be half dreaming, or as if I saw myself like another person, and felt rather sorry for myself to be drowned on my twenty-fifth birthday--drowned just when I had made my fortune, and was going home to spend it.